New Port Authority Bus Terminal: Manhattan Future Gateway

New York City is the most cosmopolitan city with great influence in the world, but the transportation problem has always been its urgent task. The Port Authority Bus Terminal, located at the entrance of the most congested tunnel in NYC, Lincoln tunnel, is the largest bus station in the nation and the busiest in the world. However, it shows the...

Homeless in Midtown Manhattan: Lincoln Gardens

With Midtown's income gap increasing significantly, affordable housing has become more and more difficult to find, leaving many New Yorkers Homeless. This thesis sets out to understand how homelessness and the built environment interact with one another and to which extent the architectural profession can make a positive impact on homelessness...

Penn Globe & The High Line Effect: The social and economic effect of public space on its surrounding neighborhoods in Midtown Manhattan.

Between 2009 and 2019 New York’s High Line was repurposed from an old train track into an elevated park, designed by Diller Scofido + Renfro, after it was saved from demolition through a community initiative, led by Robert Hammond and Joshua David. The High Line spans a highly heterogeneous area (socially as well as architecturally). The park is...

Lincoln Flex: Looking Towards the Future of Boundless Multi-use Complexes

Rapid change is quintessentially ingrained within the make-up of a city such as New York; owing to the continuous state of its evolution, buildings are becoming increasingly short-term ventures, surpassed by the latest trends and the progression of the markets. Lincoln Flex is a reactionary Multi-functional Complex, located at the juxtaposition...

Manhattan Forum: Architecture and Democracy in the Valley of Giants

As the city of New York densifies, the post-democratic state grows its roots deeper into the bedrock. 90% of buildings in Manhattan are built without public review, and outdated zoning laws no longer protect the city's public assets, alienating the public and further widening the gap between rich and poor. The Manhattan Forum is a public/private...

Co-care Oasis: Mutual Benefit of Intergenerational Engagement

The Hell’s Kitchen area should keep its residential character and provide more public function so as to be a stable and active community connecting the waterfront and Midtown CBD in the next decades. However, dull street interface, uneven distribution of vitality, expensive living burden, isolation at home intensified the contradiction between...

Reshaping NYC: How can Midtown's newly become vacant office buildings be re-used?

Offices located in Midtown Manhattan are on the move towards new developments on the river banks, leaving their old residencies behind. Because of this phenomenon Midtown is experiencing high vacancy rates in its obsolete building envelope. This transition can be seen as a threat or an opportunity for Midtown’s future. It happened before and...

Manhattan public resort design

Manhattan waterfront used to be the gateway to New York City. However, after the transformation of industry and transportation, the spatial quality and identity gradually got lost. In order to reactivate the waterfront and catering the future need of New York City, a new public resort is proposed.

Flood risk reduction interventions for the New York City subway system: A research on the impact of storm surge and sea level rise on the safety against flooding in urban delta's

On 29 October 2012 hurricane Sandy hit the coast of New York City. This category 1 hurricane had a devastating effect: large parts of the city were flooded and the city was out of business for several days. An estimated total damage of $41.9 billion had occurred of which $5 billion in account of the metro system. The largest damage was to the...

Resilient DenCity: Building With Water

This thesis is part of a bigger project called Resilient DenCity, which is the title of a group project taking place at TU Delft and more specifically within Explore Lab 19 and it is conducted by four students: Cosimo Conserva (Public Realm), Matteo Ferrarese (Green Network), Vince Marchetto (Density) Mattia Tintori (Multi purpose flood...

Working Waterfront Newtown Creek - Adaptive multi-layer flood protection on brownfield opportunity areas

For 400 years New York has a turbulent interaction with its surrounding waters. It embraced, tamed, neglected and rediscovered the waterfront which made its greatness possible. Hurricane Sandy brought in a new complexity for New York and its relationship with the waterfront. The storm reminded the city where it is located and paid a high price...

Rethinking Sustainability: United Nations Ecological Council, New York City

When tasked with the assignment to design a world headquarters for sustainability and sustainable development, I was perplexed by the ambiguity of the conceptual aspect, but at the same time restrained with a comprehensive list of pragmatic requirements. Firstly, the term ‘sustainability’ is one that is vexed with different definitions,...

United Nations Environmental Council

Graduation project on the building design for a new UN council in New York City: the proposed United Nations Environmental Council (UNEC), next to the current UN Headquarters. The building contains a mixed program of functions: the Council's conference room, auditoria, offices and exposition areas. Sustainable building solutions are integrated...

Building for sustainability - the United Nations Environmental Council

Graduation project on the building design for a new UN council in New York City: the proposed United Nations Environmental Council (UNEC), next to the current UN Headquarters. The building contains a mixed programme of functions: the Council's conference room, auditoria, offices and exposition areas. Sustainable building solutions are integrated...

Biodiversity - The ecological productive infrastructures of the Port Authority Bus Terminal - New York City

Short description : The research understands the biodiversity as a complex system and translates it into principles and tools to achieve a special interface between natural ecosystems (planet) and human consciousness (people) not only based on economic value. With these tools, habitats' opportunities for other species than human are created,...

GIS in the World Trade Center response: 10 years after

The World Trade Center attack of 9/11/01 and the response brought major attention to GIS as a valuable tool for supporting emergency management and response. That attention led to the allocation of considerable resources to the enhancement of GIS. This paper is intended to provide a look back at the events prior to and immediately following the...

The Backbone of the Metropolis: How the development of rapid transit determined the becoming of the New York City Metropolis

The Rapid Transit system in New York City, with its underground and elevated railroads, has clearly been a very important factor in the development of the New York City metropolis as we know it today. Not solely as a means of transportation through the vast amount of land that is covered by the city, but also as a means of development for the...

Border conditions, folded skins, public parasites and the description of spatial voids: An architectural project based on experimental abstraction and traces of randomly encountered public acts in New York City

The City of New York is a stage that invites everyday people to become active, to play in it or to misbehave. The streets and its public transportation network are the stage, artificial light, special sound qualities in certain spaces and the presence of a potential audience the specific qualities of these urban stages among others. The audience...